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“I’m interested in harmony as a musical component and a driving force,” says Sebastian Dumitrescu, summarising his work as a composer. “This was true even when I was still using a set of 12 pitches. Eventually, the means and solutions afforded by this paradigm were no longer satisfactory. I developed an interest in the sound of microtonal music.

At some point, I started wondering why Hans Zimmer kept turning up in my social media feeds. One ad promised The Best of Hans Zimmer, another The Music of Hans Zimmer & Others. Sometimes his name appeared surrounded by candles; sometimes it hovered over a full symphony orchestra. The line-ups ranged from solo piano and chamber ensembles to large orchestras and choirs.

The Finnish music scene experienced modest years in the late 1940s. Take music records, for example: they were sold five times less than during the gramophone craze in the late 1920s. The few existing production companies focused on domestic entertainment and dance music. Due to general import restrictions, there was a shortage of foreign records. Music records were out of reach yet also attractive.

Intricate, glittering tubes like coiling roots capture the attention of a new visitor and greet the regular concertgoer like a familiar face. The organ façade, now dominating the Musiikkitalo main hall, has already become a new symbol for the concert centre in the two years since the long-awaited instrument was inaugurated. It is easy to forget that for years the audience stared at an empty surface, waiting for the concert organ since the building’s inauguration in 2011.

“In my temptation to stop time, I have the irrational feeling that, if I succeed, time will become space and I will be able to enter a secret realm where I have never been before.” – Kaija Saariaho* Kaija Saariaho considered it the composer’s mission to reclaim control over time, in music as in real life.

For the first edition, 12 artists were selected from almost 300 applicants: composers, writers and directors were brought together to explore new ways of creating opera collaboratively. Previous experience in opera was not a requirement, opening the programme to artists from a wide range of backgrounds. The selected artists developed their ideas together with professionals from different fields, resulting in four very different 20–25-minute operas that premiered in Helsinki in mid-August 2026.

“Is this music?” a small child whispered during a show on Flow Festival’s all-ages Sunday afternoon. A fair question! Onstage were writer-vocalist Niillas Holmberg, who read his poems and chanted Sámi joik vocals, and Pauli Lyytinen, who added saxophone, vocal drones and loops, thumb piano and bells. Through improvisation, the two vividly expanded pieces from their 2025 album Naarattu laulu as part of Flow’s Other Sound series.

At the beginning of June, the Choir Recording of the Year 2025 was announced. The selection was made jointly by the Finnish Amateur Musicians’ Association (Sulasol), the Finnish Choral Directors’ Association, and the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle). The award went to Jag är fri, the second full-length album by the Finnish Youth Choir.

On 4 January 1926, Jean Sibelius received a telegram from Walter Damrosch, conductor of the Symphony Society of New York. Damrosch commissioned a new symphonic poem for performance later that year, offering the Finnish composer 400 dollars for the first three performances. The work that emerged from the commission was Tapiola. Even before the score was completed, there was uncertainty about how the title Tapiola should be rendered in English.

“Lauda, lauda, laude,” sings the Celebrant, a.k.a. baritone Ville Rusanen, against an escalating orchestral and choral accompaniment. Lauda is a Latin word that means “praise”. We are at a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s magnum opus, MASS, at Ouluhalli. I am in Oulu, one of this year’s European Capitals of Culture, to find out what their catchphrase “cultural climate change” is all about.